Get ready for a marathon on great food! We’re tackling Ratatouille! We watched the video and noted all the food shown that we noticed. There were ~25 actual recipes that we haven’t made before. This week we’re doing the food up until Remy gets washed up in the sewers of Paris. With Ratatouille, we’ve been trying not to cut any corners because we want to make the food as realistic as possible. So check out Week 1 below! This week we got some help with our friends at Fiction-food Cafe for one of the recipes. So check out that site for some great treats!

Gusteau’s Salmon on Caesar Salad

This first recipe is at the start of the movie where they explain who Gusteau is though a series of images. One image is him on a cover of a magazine holding a plate with a salmon fillet on top of a caesar salad.

(Credit: Disney)

We made this great french-style salmon on top of an amazing caesar salad

Roll out the puff pastry to a rectangle about the size of your pan and prick it with a fork

Bake for 15 minutes at 200°C, then remove from the oven and cover with parchment paper

Place a pan of the same size on the puff pastry covered with parchment paper. The second pan should prevent the puff pastry from rising too much, but it should not be too heavy. You can use the oven grill as well. Bake again for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and set the oven temperature to 260°C with the grill mode on. Remove the second pan and the parchment paper and then sprinkle the puff pastry with powdered sugar.

Bake for 5 more minutes (keep an eye on the puff pastry as it might burn very easily). As soon as you take the pan out of the oven, cut the puff pastry rectangle in 3 equal bands (the smaller side of the rectangle should become the long side of the bands).

While the puff pastry is in the oven, you can prepare the pastry cream: start by heating the milk with half of the sugar, vanilla extract and lemon rind in a saucepan

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and corn starch

When the milk is boiling, pour it in the egg mixture (in 3 parts) and mix every time to prevent the yolks from curdling

Put back the liquid mixture into the saucepan and cook on medium heat whisking continuously

Allow the pastry cream to boil for 2 minutes then remove from the heat. Pour the cream on a pan covered with plastic wrap, cover with more plastic wrap and chill.

When the cream is chilled and the puff pastry bands have cooled down, whip quickly the pastry cream and fill a piping bag fitted with a big plain tip

Pipe stripes of pastry cream all along the first band of puff pastry (flat side on the bottom)

Place the second band of puff pastry on top and then pipe again stripes of cream on it

Finally add the third and last band of puff pastry (flat side on top) and chill the millefeuille. In the meantime melt the chocolate and have it ready in a parchment paper piping cone.

Now heat the fondant with half a spoon of water on a bain marie. The fondant should be quite runny, but do not overheat it (the ideal temperature is 35-37°C).

Pour the fondant on the top of the millefeuille

Quickly spread it with a long spatula all along the top layer of the puff pastry. Be careful as the fondant dries quickly (it also means that passing the spatula multiple times on the same spot might leave marks)

Cut the tip of the piping cone and quickly draw multiple chocolate lines on the fondant before it dries completely. You can aim for perfection, but even if the lines are not perfectly straight, don't worry too much, (almost) nobody will notice!

With the back of the tip of a knife, make some evenly-spaced perpendicular lines

Halfway between the marks created in the previous step, make some more marks moving the knife in the opposite direction

Chill the millefeuille for at least a couple of hours (or freeze it for 20-30 minutes), then refine its edges by cutting a few millimetres per side with a serrated knife to make them straight.

Finally cut the millefeuille (only if it is cold and firm) in equal portions with a serrated knife

Notes

If you need a recipe for fondant: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/191275/marshmallow-fondant/

DisneyMeals http://disneymeals.me/

Lightning-y Mushrooms

Remy finds a Chanterelle mushroom and some Chèvre. He starts to roast them with some seasonings and then was struck by lightning, creating a blast of flavor.

(Credit: Disney)

This is where our friend at Fiction-Food Cafe came in. She had a great recipe on her site. It turned out marvelously. I did make one slight tweak to it. I added a little bit of liquid smoke to imitate the smokiness created from roasting it over the chimney. We also couldn’t find any chanterelle mushrooms, sadly. Here’s the recipe on Fiction Food Cafe, or you can just check out the video and recipe below.

Combine the olive oil, vinegar, a bit of juice from sun-roasted tomatoes and garlic. Set aside.

Season both sides of steak with salt and pepper

Over a lightly greased skillet, sear all sides of the steak

Let cook until desired doneness (~10mins)

Sprinkle the steak with rosemary and basil

Remove from pan and cover with foil

Add the the sauce to the pan with a couple sun-roasted tomatoes

Whisk for 2 minutes and add a bit of salt and pepper

Pour the sauce over steak

DisneyMeals http://disneymeals.me/

Gusteau’s Souffle

Remy steals Anyone Can Cook and uses it as a boat. He finally pulls ashore and talks to Gusteau through his illustration on a page showing Gusteau’s Souffle

(Credit: Disney)

This recipe is special because it comes straight from the movie. I copied the recipe as it shows in the screenshot. There were some words in the steps I had to guess at because I couldn’t make out what it said. Turns out the recipe worked! It wasn’t just some random fake recipe. I did have to cook it for almost twice as long as it says though. So without further ado, here is the OFFICIAL Gusteau’s Souffle (the words in the brackets are the instructions I couldn’t make out and guessed).

wow this looks great, a while back I also dabbled with ratatouille on my blog Nerdy Treats ad cooked up the lightning-y mushrooms, and I’ll have to say that yours looks absolutely delish. Thanks for a great blog I can’t wait to see what you guys are cooking up next
Lots of love from Denmark

P.S I never though of pairing salmon and ceasar salad before, but it just looks so yummy that I think I’ll have to whip up this recipe tonight

Thanks! I just checked out your blog (I’m assuming its http://nerdytreats.dk/ ). You have some great stuff there too! I love your Futurama recipes! haha. The salmon was really good. At first I was just going to put it on a bed of plain lettuce, but I talked to a chef before doing these Ratatouille dishes and he recommended to do it on top of caesar salad. It tasted great!